South Africa 2010 World Cup

In previous posts I mentioned that the Estonian FA have kindly donated a shirt while the English and Australian federations have declined our request. I have continued to contact officials in the English FA but only one individual from the many I have spoken to has so far expressed a 'positive' attitude to this project.

Personally, I think the English FA looks rather ridiculous when you compare their response to that of the Estonians. Here is the follow up letter I received from Tallinn today:

"The shirt will be send out tomorrow via a courrier as I understand so it definitely will make its way to South Africa in time. May I just say once again what a wonderful project you are being involved with and we are really proud to be part of this!

The shirt has „only“ 8 signatures as yesterday we had a match between our summer camp kids (one week summer camps are held in Estonia in June and August respectively with 500 kids each and one day is an excursion to Tallinn) and an Estonian XI, where there were also 8 national team members in the team. Unbelievable scenes, fantastic event, you can see the pictures here:

In 2 weeks time there is the Baltic Cup where I could have got more signatures, but I wanted to make sure that the shirt will reach you in time, so I play it safe and already send it now, even if it „just“ has 8 signatures. I hope this is OK."

Thank you Estonia. The English FA - please take note of this!The Estonians are making you look like idiots.

Hot on the heels of England, Australia became the second World Cup team to comfirm that they will not be donating a shirt to the refugees.The Socceroos told us:"We have been inundated with requests for signed shirts and we are unable to assist as we do not have any stock"

Seems like the Aussies have been studying at the same school of limp excuses as the English FA...

...which makes it all the more embarrassing for England and Australia when, on the very same day, you receive the following message from the Estonian Football Federation:

"Please tell us the address where we can safely send the signed Estonian National Team shirt to – Thanks a lot!"

Estonia did not qualify for the 2010 World Cup.

Estonia is a small footballing country with limited resources in the Baltic states.

Photos, stories, news and blogs from the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, as well as 'the Shirt 2010' and 'More Than a Game' projects in Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa and Lesotho